


He Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins

by DG_Fletcher



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Episode: s03e22 The Most Toys, Episode: s03e26-s04e01 The Best of Both Worlds Parts 1-2, Episode: s04e03 Brothers, M/M, Post Borgpocalypse, The Borg, Villains, Yridians, villains win
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22016128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DG_Fletcher/pseuds/DG_Fletcher
Summary: Geordi La Forge is one of the few survivors after the Borg took out the Federation and then the Yridians took out Borg and Warp. On one of the few warp-capable planets left, out on the edge of the Beta Quadrant, he thinks he sees Data, decades after he'd blown up transporting Hytritium.Meanwhile, Kivas Fajo is A Very Old Zibalian.
Relationships: Data/Geordi La Forge, Data/Kivas Fajo
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	1. Section One

Wa'a 7, to Geordi La Forge's unique eyes, looked like a saturated hellscape, and the left half of his visor didn't work right anymore anyway, jittery, staticky, splotchy. The last person who knew how to repair it died two years ago and he didn't have the tools to fix it himself. 

But there was no mistaking, even through the splotches, the energy image at the market square. 

"DATA?!" he yelled. 

A native Wa'aian next to him whisper-hissed, "Keep it down," they said. "I don't like to sell to loud people." 

Geordi rather ignored them, hurrying through the market as fast as his old, aching knees would let him, around a whole left field of splotches and a bunch of waist-high Wa'aians, but the person that looked exactly like Data was nowhere to be found. 

His job bleepered him on his pager and it was a long painful walk to the train station, crouching down on the "this train was built for a species that thinks 5 feet is tall" train and then spending the whole day helping correlate tech back and forth.

He was well-paid, valuable, had to get used to money here, had a house, had no idea what to DO with the money; he gave most of it to a book program for Wa'a and Refugee kids. 

Now at work tinkering away, he wondered if they'd just -had Data- when the Borg attacked if that would have "fixed everything". Was Data -that- smart? Or would their assimilating Data or Lore have made the Borg smart enough to defend against the Yridian Mass Weapon? 

His boss, a much younger half-human, half-Andorian child of survivors, Kori Noisan, tapped him on the shoulder. 

"Hey--"

On her end--you're elderly, you're the smartest person we have, I really really really don't want you to die on us until you finish about fourteen more large projects. Pls live at least another decade. 

"--you seem stressed?" pls just be stress pls just be stress and not you getting sick. 

On Geordi's end, he looked over at Noisan. "I thought I saw someone from the old days today while getting breakfast, but when I went after them, I lost them in the crowd."

Noisan patted him on the shoulder and handed him a tissue. "Who is it, what do you need from us?" 

Telling her it might be -Data- seemed insane. All the records said Data was dead, and Geordi had watched that goddamn hytritium explosion video so many times on so many frequencies he had the timing memorized. Lore, maybe. Was Lore a reasonable possibility? Or "Another Noonian Android". Lore was a surprise, who says there wasn't Data-Lore-Phil, short for Philosophy?

That sounded Not Nuts. 

"It might be nothing," Geordi flicked his hand past the left half of the glitchvisor to suggest maybe it was just it being broken that was doing that, "But it might be another Noonian Android, like Data used to be. Soong made Lore, he might have made some other androids that survived. It's just that I know that energy signature-look anywhere. Only Soong androids have it and..." he trailed off. 

Noisan's opinion was "so what if you are nuts, let's go find the guy, it's either a glitch in your visor or an android. It's not like anyone but you is doing anything right now anyway, might as well make you happy". 

After getting a few more details, Noisan sent Henri, an oddly-named last surviving Lurian in the Universe as far as anyone knew, and Jokak, Klingon, out looking for a non-Wa'a-height person. Getting a description was a bit of a project. Geordi didn't see the way anyone else did and eventually they went with "I was -told- he looked Pale and had Black Hair and Yellow Eyes..." 

Geordi was happy again and promptly went to work -finishing- a full on how-to guide on Reverse Polarity for Noisan, which was exactly why she'd humored him to begin with. Henri's most valuable trait was "is Lurian". Jokak's most valuable trait was "is Stronger than Wa'a by a considerable margin". 

Geordi was irreplaceable. 

Jokak came back the next morning with an elderly non-Wa'a alien in a wheelchair. 

"Geordi LaForge?" the man croaked. "Fancy meeting you here all way out here on Wa'a. I hope you like their Baked Sun Muffins as much as I do." 

On Geordi's end, he was straight up having flashbacks. Captain-Picard-what-happened? calm and collected and way way WAY too chill in Geordi's opinion. Everything-seemed-to-be-running-smoothly; [Hytritium] is-just-too-dangerous.

"Kivas Fajo," Geordi choked out. 

"The Last pure-blooded Zibalian!" Fajo churruped. "I do have lots of lovely little half-Zibalians running around now after that, you know, Borg Fiasco. Pity the Enterprise got all caught up in that--" 

Noisan prodded Jokak, "What does he have to do with the Soong Droid?" 

"Oh -THAT-," Fajo said, cracking a knuckle and wincing at the crack. "First off, you're probably going to be utterly ~furious with me, and second off, technically he belongs to the Wa'a Preservation of Federation Treasures now anyway, and third off, the currency I sold him for doesn't work anymore so I'm not really sure what you want to -do- about it but--."

Geordi threw the table.

The whole table. 

Despite it being very heavy and he was not anywhere near being young anymore 

It didn't get as far as Fajo's wheelchair, and Fajo made an odd frown at it. Jokak very lightly held Geordi's arm and gave Noisan a "wtf do I -do-" look.

"I KNEW I MISSED SOMETHING!" Geordi yelled, freezing cold with shock and horror and the whole last several decades crashing down on him. "YOU -DID- SET UP THE TRICYANATE! DATA'S ALIVE--"

"Data's an android," Kivas Fajo said off to the side like getting screamed at was normal. 

"--Data's been alive THIS. ENTIRE. TIME!" Geordi collapsed into the seat, coughing and choking and Noisan worried he'd have a heart attack. 

"Take -him- out of here," she ordered at Jokak about Kivas Fajo and went over to poor little Geordi, getting him a drink of water. 

"I never forgot that, all these years later." Geordi was ranting to himself, "The last thing I said to him was 'Containment field stable. Gravitational fluctuations within acceptable parameters. Gravitational fluctuations within acceptable parameters. Gravitational fluctuations within acceptable parameters..." 

Noisan stared off after where Fajo's gone. 

"I have a tiny confession to make--" she said, and given Geordi's horrified look at her, maybe she'd picked the wrong words. "Er. I was looking for files about how warp used to work before the Yridian Mass Weapon and found a file about an exploding shuttle. I didn't ask then, not sure if I should ask now, but you are definitely not okay..." 

Geordi took another very big drink of water, like he was drinking his emotions. He also ignored her "question". 

"What'd he say he--" the rage came back, hard, and he started that sentence over. On Geordi's end, he couldn't get himself to say 'sold Data to'. The words just woudn't come out. "What Wa'a... museum? did he say Data was at?" 

"Wa'a Preservation of Federation Treasures," Noisan said. "HENRI go call them and ask about an android?" 

Henri nodded a bunch and waddled off as fast as his stumpy Lurian legs could go. 

"Gravitational fluctuations within acceptable parameters..." 

Geordi was talking to himself again. Noisan pushed the water at him again. It'd worked last time. It worked this time again too and he downed more of it.

"Tell me everything," she said." 

And he did. 

He told her about Kivas Fajo and the Hytritium and Tricyanate poisoning. The explosion. The horrifying explosion. Several weeks of researching and flying back to Beta Agni Two and re-interviewing Kivas Fajo twice and everything check out just fine over and over again despite all of Geordi just feeling that Something was Wrong--

\--and then a month later, Borg. 

And there was never any time to care about anything else ever, 

ever again. 

The Borg took Picard. 

The Borg took Earth. 

The Borg took the Federation. 

The Borg took Everything. 

There was another battle.

The Enterprise had to be evacuated. 

Geordi and OBrien and everyone out of Engineering ended up 

evacuated to the civilian ship Anokye.

The Bridge Crew evacuated to another ship. 

That ship

didn't make it. 

And then Anokye had a Yridian named Biki Hao on it. 

Biki Hao and Geordi'd been in the same cafeteria when Biki's com badge went off with some female voice singing eerie quartertones. 

"Where sands speak,  
And water talks,  
The air that sees,  
Chases 'bears' away,  
This we call Amorphi"

And then the Anokye just -stopped- dead in space. 

And there were no more Borg. 

How? 

Geordi had no idea, and Biki Hao's opinion was that Amorphi were basically Yridian Gods. 

Then it was two years of PTSD-inducing hell crammed on the dimly lit, reeking Anokye. OBrien offing himself in the middle of it and Geordi walking in on what was left. Eight weeks in, figuring out how to crawl by impulse, then a crude, crawling Warp 1, then a sputtery Warp 2. 

A decade of miserable nonstop work on a crumbling, half-Borgcrushed, dying Tellar Prime where EVERYONE wanted him ALL THE TIME because he could (kind of) get the Yridian-broken universe to still give them Warp. 

Sometimes. 

Eventually, someone found that the range of the Yridian Mass Weapon only extended to MOST of the universe, and there was a handful of full Warp-Capable civilizations out on one end of the Beta Quadrant. 

Mostly the Wa'a. Who thought 5 feet tall was Tall, but were otherwise benevolent kind people who accepted the survivors.

And here they were. 

And apparently 

Data 

was

too. 

Henri handed Geordi the phone. "Wa'a kahi'i kouu--" and then the translator kicked in, "--Treasures." said a nice Wa'a person. "Please hold while I connect you to Mister Data."


	2. Section Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this universe, Kivas Fajo is a voracious reader, and that changes everything.

On Kivas Fajo's end, 

One book--

of the many he read

-made all the difference. 

In this oscillation of the Star Trek Universe, Fajo was a voracious reader as well as a collector, and Some Author had written Some How-To Book that Fajo had encountered and read Some Ten Years Before and it sharpened Fajo's "edge".

Mostly by teaching him patience, better planning, and to shut the fuck up and observe before jumping right in and screaming at things. 

This time 'round, after he decided he just Had to Have the best Android anyone had ever seen, he did a lot of careful research. 

He picked a day when Troi was off ship. He picked a section of Beta Agni Two with natural tricyanate and instead of flooding it, planted an enzyme that made it erode out of the rock faster--but it still looked completely natural. All that the Enterprise crew saw was layers of ancient rock, "op, this one's weathered out, that's the poison and why the poison's Now." 

The hytritium wasn't so damn precise as to look suspicious. He even set it up for them to have "more" if they needed it, but Borg got in the way of ever needing that. 

And most importantly, he waited several weeks--and two ghastly interviews with the Federation!--till the drama had died down before turning Data back -on-. 

"What am I doing here?" asked the android, and Fajo -shut the fuck up- and watched the magnificent sculpture in action. 

The detail. The balance. The symmetry. Jawline could use some work. Oh well. 

"Federation's gone," Fajo said. "We rescued you." 

It'd been a lie at the time. 

It had been a lie

at the time. 

It was a well-crafted lie, many layers, somewhere there was a Flaxian Analyst involved, work work work. The plan at the time was to figure out Data's programming and fix it. Like cleaning the Mona Lisa. CAREFULLY. Like preserving the precise scent on bubble gum. Like finding an 800 year old North Continent Kanar an -not breaking the damn fragile Hebitian glass-. 

There had been a plan. It involved a lie. 

It had been a lie for all of -a week- before the Borg hit. 

And then it wasn't a lie anymore. 

They really had rescued Data. 

The Enterprise was -right there up against the Borg-. 

Picard was now Locutus. 

"I need to be out there, helping them," Data said. 

"Data, Data, Data," Fajo set his hand on Data's arm. It was -safe now-. There were many -many- layers to this charade and the proximity-actuated field kicked in only if Fajo's cortisol spiked. "With your -beautiful mind-, with everything you are, with what the Borg have done to everyone already, you are the preservation of everything Federation. Every piece of knowledge, you're a walking one-android library and we need to get you as far away from the Borg as possible." 

Kivas Fajo basked in the Pure Dumb Luck that a little patience and a lot of Borg were. 

Borg terminated Andoria. 

Fajo set up a nice safe suicide-pill in case Borg found him. For all its magnificent glory, the Varon-T Disruptor was a horrible way to commit suicide. 

Not that Fajo knew his luck, but Stardate 43872.2, he'd acquired Data. A few weeks later, Stardate 43989.1, Borg attacked. A few weeks after that, Stardate 44085.7, the Yridian Mass Weapon went off. 

And Data went -terrifyingly Nuts-. 

They were dead in the "water", floating in a nilspace caused by, from the his ship the Jovis's perspective at the time, the working theory was -Borg- because they didn't have a Yridian on board to know otherwise. 

From Data's perspective, the signal from a dying Noonian Soong kicked in but the Yridian Mass Weapon had rather wrecked How Warp Works. 

Data, deeply tranced and running on autoprograms could hear it hear it HEAR IT HEAR IT HEAR IT and coudn't actually get the Jovis to MOVE in space.

It woudn't move. 

It woudn't Warp. 

It woudn't go. 

It woudn't Do Anything. 

Asking Kivas Fajo got nothing but getting Data zapped by the Proximity-and-Cortisol-activated field because Scary Trance Data is Scary and in a Trance and DEFINITELY setting off cortisol on an otherwise stressed-as-fuck Fajo anyway. 

Jovis no go Jovis no go Jovis no go 

Signal signal signal signal signal

Jovis no go Jovis no go Jovis no go 

Dad dad dad dad dad 

JOVIS NO GO JOVIS NO GO JOVIS NO GO

Iconian Gateway?? 

"You're right on time," said Soong.

From Fajo's perspective, it was on a lovely jungle planet, refreshingly devoid of Borg, that Fajo contacted an old Ferengi buddy who knew a Yridian, erm, "buddy", and learned Wa'a was a Safe Destination. 

Soong got a lovely funeral and died of Old, not "thrown by Lore". From Soong dying of Being Old, and Fajo--not that he had anything better to do. They couldn't get the ship to Warp--used the experience to bond with Data, be "there for him". And Fajo acquired hundreds of gorgeous, amazing, leatherbound ACTUAL BOOKS. 

Fajo was well aware the mood he was supposed to display in public was "grief the Borg ate the universe". 

Sometimes he succeeded. 

He rather failed upon encountering Soong Bookcases though. That was pure glee. 

(LORE... was stuck out in a ship being just as angrycrazy and trying to get home, but without an awareness Ionian Gateways were things, and Warp was fried.) 

And from there, it was an Ionian Gateway off to Wa'a and

Kivas 

Fajo 

was

fine. 

Well, till recently. Wa'a had Warp and their med tech for trauma worked in the same way "broken inanimate table leg with a splint will hold up the table, and splints work on Wa'aian bones and everyone else's bones, but complex frayed mylein sheath proteins on Zibelians don't work the way Wa'a nerves work -at all- and he was dying. 

Mostly of Being An Old Zibalian. 

But still. 

Too sick and miserable to manage a house anymore, he'd set everything up for Data to manage all the lost Federation things at the Wa'a Preservation of Federation Treasures and now everything was kind of hurty and kind of unpleasant and kind of nauseous all the time and kind of dizzy and kind of unhappy and Wa'a weren't culturally euthanasia-friendly at all and he kind of just wanted to off himself quickly and painlessly and was out of ideas. 

Until he found out that Geordi LaForge was here.


	3. Section Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geordi and Data confront Kivas Fajo, who's in the middle of reading a book.

"Data the Federation Android speaking," said Data. 

And it was 

Data. 

IT WAS ACTUALLY DATA. 

"DATA!" Geordi yelled.

"Geordi!" Data greeted back, and he was infuriatingly -chipper and emotionless about it-. "You are one of the survivors? Where are you located? I will come straight to you!" 

"The Harbor at Eko'oa'ika'ika." Wa'a place names were hard to do in a good mood, let alone when half overjoyed and half furious. 

And Data beamed in. 

On Noisan's side omg i thought you'd be older oh wait you're an android duh i knew that. 

On Geordi's end, his whole life crunched down in his head at once, remembering weeks of work interrupted by Borg and decades of knowing SOMETHING WAS OFF, and here Data was, in a tailored green Wa'a Museum uniform and looking perfectly ordinary other than random Zibalian face paint? 

"Data did you get STOCKHOLM SYNDROME?" Geordi meeped, touching his old friend barely with the back of his hand mostly to know it wasn't just a glitch of the left side of his visor and mentally sifting through a zillion scenarios. Data willingly leaving seemed insane. Data getting kidnapped was the only thing Geordi would let himself believe at the moment. The other options were "turncoat!" and "you betrayed us" and he couldn't quite force himself to contemplate that just yet. 

Data did the adorable headtilt and Geordi kind of wanted to sob right there. "Stockholm Syndrome, the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor. Is your visor in need of repair?"

"You still quote dictionaries," Geordi squeaked, trying to juggle about 18 zillion emotions up against Data who didn't fkking HAVE ANY. He sat down and took the visor off, and could hear Data repairing it, buzz-buzz-zip.

"But Geordi," Data continued, while doing repairs "Fajo rescued me from the Borg Invasion. I have become the preservation of everything Federation. 

It sounded like as much of a quote as the dictionary quote had. 

"No, he didn't!" Geordi yelled. 

Data took a moment to process that. "Explain." There was no emotion in his voice at all, which was infuriatingly normal for Data. He seemd so damn -innocent-, (and YOUNG?!) and wide eyed and adorable and infuriatingly emotionless at the moment and Geordi kind of wanted to melt-glomp him or something and there wasn't anywhere for GEORDI's emotions to go. 

"On Stardate 43872.2, you were transporting Hytritium and then the shuttle looked like it exploded but -I THOUGHT SOMETHING SUSPICIOUS HAPPENED- and--"

Data handed him his visor back and being able to see anything but hexbars and static down the whole left side added another 18 zillion emotions. "--wow, thank you Data." 

"You're welcome Geordi."

Geordi really wanted to glomp him and settled for shoulderpatting him instead. "I tried SO HARD to figure out what went wrong, and then we got Borg and I..." 

Data headtilted the other way, and on his end, he was scanning every single file he had on his first encounters with Kivas Fajo. 

We rescued you. 

Not -from Borg-.

Just 'rescued'. 

Just.

Rescued. 

"Geordi," Data asked. "By your records, when did the Borg arrive?" 

"43989.1." Dates he would remember even with his squishy human brain into infinity.

Data did the headtwitch thingy and on Geordi's end, Geordi suddenly felt young again; it was very nearly the same headtwitch Data'd done when they'd been Sherlock and Holmes. Data's Thinky Twitch. He hadn't lost it, even after all these years. 

"Geordi, please come with me," Data said flatly. 

Geordi flicked a look at Noisan. 

"You're off work anyway??" Noisan shrugged. On Noisan's end, why are you asking me, I think in this case you outrank me, and you're off the clock now anyway. ithink. imma check the clock. 

Data stepped close to Geordi, pulled out the Wa'a communication device and tapped a few buttons. Wa'a didn't quite "do" the "com badge thing" the same way. 

They beamed in to a big (big!) building with the ceiling 2x higher than it had any reason to be, made of big gray stones and grass growing off of them, filled with empty bookshelves with half the books gone away to the Wa'a Preservation of Federation Treasures with Fajo in the wheelchair and a Wa'a employee reading CS Lewis's Silver Chair to him. He'd been in a nostalgic mood. 

"Kivas Fajo!" Data said in Command Voice. "It has come to my attention that our association with one another began with an abduction, not a rescue. You lied to me."

Fajo signaled for the Wa'a employee to turn the chair around. On his end, he wasn't feeling so great at the moment anyway, and he wanted Out. He looked at Data now with none of his book-learned courtesy, none of his book-learned compassion, none of the mirroring, none of the listening. 

None of the Faking It. 

Just a tiny smug glimmer of quiet glee.

"What was your motive in abducting me?" Data demanded. 

"Data, Data, Data, look in the mirror," Fajo said. "You are absolute -perfection-." He flicked a look at the book on the desk that he didn't know had made all of this possible by fine-tuning his reactions to things a decade before deciding he even WANTED Data. "I believe in the power of great art to transcend geographical boundaries, political differences and even the restrictions of time, and you, Data, are -art-." 

"Our sexual encounters are not consensual." Data said. Still in the flat "sometimes I really wish you had emotions" voice. Geordi gave Data a look, and sort of never wanted to let his waaaaay too naive android buddy out of his sight again ever after that one. 

"No, they weren't," Fajo grinned. On his end, he was -trying- to goad them into Something. You gonna get Angry and kill me yet? I want outta here. My head hurts. 

"Nothing you have done is ethical or legal." Data said. 

"I would think by now after everything your Federation is got destroyed by Borg and Yridians and now we live under the Wa'a Kings of the barely-pronounceable Hopo'okoko, that you would think ethicality and legality don't matter. Nothing matters, Data." can i throw up now?

"You may have, by your actions, inadvertently caused the termination of the entire Federation." Geordi yelled, capable of way more emotion than Data was.

wait what?

Now it was Fajo's turn to have 80000 emotions. Surprise, bafflement, Data thinking Data meant that much and very well might have. All the art he couldn't steal, all the books he couldn't read, all the music he never would have had time for, all the little politicy games--

\--If he couldn't have it, no one could.

How fascinatingly -wonderful-. 

"I'm dying of Mylean Syndrome anyway Data," he said, standing up even though he really really shouldn't be. The world whirled around him and he was sick and dizzy and also utterly elated. 

Maybe he had destroyed Everything, making it here for him and only him and no one else would ever experience it. Data and Geordi were talking; Fajo really had hoped Geordi would be angry enough with him to just kill him and get it over with, using the nice safe little painless Federation phasers, but apparently the man was too Federation for that. Too bad the Borg suicide pill hadn't worked. They were blathering about punishment. 

It wasn't like he'd -meant- to Destroy Everything, but if that was the case, this was a wonderfully -empowering- mood.

What kind of punishment would you even give me? You want to preserve what I may or may not have accidentally ruined? Great so do I. I fund half the museums anyway. You want to destroy it all as punishment? Great, then -I- experienced it and with me gone, no one experiences it. You want me to pay for it? Too late, all my Federation assets have long since become meaningless and my Wa'a assets are gifted away or part of long-term-care packages, reverse mortgages, and annuities set to expire when I do. I don't own anything anymore. You want to imprison me? You could -try-, I'm friends with Constable Yihikokahani and by the time anything got beyond his courtroom check, I'd be dead anyway. 

You want to kill me over this? Great! -I- want you to kill me over this. I'm medically miserable and want Out. 

Ohwait. 

The Borg Suicide Pill. 

"Though under earth and throneless now I be," he said, gazing at the blur that was Data through his pillbroken dying eyes and quoting Silver Chair because it was there. "Yet while I lived, all the earth was under me."

There are Many Universes, as shown by the episode "Parallels"--and in this one, Kivas Fajo got everything he could ever want.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to ShadedTopaz and another friend from my Facebook Writing group for Beta Reading it, helping with the ending, and adding little snippet ideas! <3


End file.
